in? Joe’s. The canopy of his own bunk was several feet above his head. There was light in the corridor, and he could hear voices in the kitchen downstairs. Not that late then. Better go back to sleep. Sleep was a world in which Joe was still OK.
A sudden rattling sound. He sat up. That was what had woken him. A series of sharp, clear taps. Someone was throwing stones at the window.
Joe! Joe was back and trying to get in. Tom sprang out of bed and ran across the room. The curtains were drawn. The fabric was rough against his face and he could feel the draught from outside. ‘Joe,’ he whispered.
He could still hear voices downstairs. Harry’s was the loudest, the most distinct. He could hear a woman’s voice too, much softer and quieter. Not his mum though, someone with an English accent. It could be Jenny, she’d been here earlier. Should he call for his parents, tell them he thought Joe was outside, throwing stones up at the window?
But could he do that to his mum? Make her hope Joe was back when really it was just tree branches scraping against the window?
There were no trees anywhere near Tom’s bedroom window.
He put both hands on the curtains and got ready to pull them an inch or two apart. Just far enough to see what was out there. An inch. Nothing but blackness. Two inches. Three.
The girl was in the garden behind the house, staring up at him.
In the kitchen silence fell. Then Gareth pushed himself to his feet. Rushton held up one hand. ‘Mrs Royle should be on her way to headquarters by now,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘I’m just waiting for a call from DI Neasden to tell me she’s safely in custody. We won’t be able to interview her until the duty psychiatrist is in attendance, but at least we know she won’t be able to harm the lad.’
‘Gillian?’ said Alice. ‘Hayley was her daughter.’
‘She wouldn’t be the first mother to kill her own child,’ answered Rushton. ‘Not by a long shot. To be honest, I was sceptical myself when Dr Oliver called. I’m still not 100 per cent convinced, but there are enough questions that need answering.’ He nodded at Evi. ‘Go on, lass,’ he said, ‘you’ll tell it better than I will.
Evi dropped her eyes to the table, then looked up again. ‘I’ve been worried about Gillian for a while,’ she said, and the words seemed to come out of her reluctantly, as though, even now, she found it hard to break a patient’s confidence. ‘I knew there was a lot she wasn’t telling me, and I also knew there was more going on in her head than grief. I’ve suspected childhood abuse from a number of things she’s said and the behaviour she exhibits, but the first really worrying sign for me was finding out she’d lied about the manner of Hayley’s death. She told me and others that Hayley’s body wasn’t found, that it just disappeared in the fire. That wasn’t true. The firemen found remains.’
‘Which weren’t Hayley’s,’ Harry reminded her. ‘Hayley was taken out before the fire was started.’
‘Yes,’ said Evi. ‘But how could she have known that unless she was involved in Hayley’s removal from the cottage? I think Gillian’s refusal to accept that the remains were Hayley’s was her way of dealing with guilt.’
‘OK, but that’s not enough by itself,’ said Harry, looking up at Rushton, trying to read the older man’s face.
Evi sipped from her glass again. ‘No, it isn’t,’ she said. ‘But I’ve been talking to her mother as well, over the last week or so. Gillian’s father was killed in a car accident when she was three. She was in the car with him. She wasn’t hurt, but when the police pulled her out she was covered in her father’s blood.’
‘Christ,’ muttered Gareth.
‘Well, yes. Enough to have a damaging effect on any child. Gillian’s mother married again and – I have no proof of this, but I think Gillian was abused by her stepfather when she was still quite young. Her early medical history shows textbook examples of symptoms of abuse and she talks about him in a way that is very disparaging and full of sexual references. I’ve had to be very careful when I’ve been talking to Gwen. Obviously, I couldn’t ask her outright if Gillian had been abused, but I could hint around the subject. There was something there, I’m